Another Sleeping Beauty
by brandeee
Summary: Eri, Yuka, and Ayumi were supposed to be having a carefree day swimming in the ocean. That is, until they find a boy's body lying on the sea bottom. And what's this strange scroll wrapped around his wrists? They probably should ask Kagome for help she do
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Or anyone else, for that matter. Yup, I just know that everybody thought I did. But I don't. Alas.

Summary: Eri, Yuka, and Ayumi were supposed to be having a carefree day swimming in the ocean. That is, until they find a boy's body lying on the sea bottom. And what's this strange scroll wrapped around his wrists? They should probably ask Kagome what it means ( she does live in a temple, after all... ) But she's been sick so much lately, they don't really want to get her entangled in their problems...even if not asking for help could kill them.

A/N: Yay! This is my first fic!

The first chapter is sort of weird and doesn't have very much to do with the rest of the story. But whatever. Read it anyway. Oh, and Eri is the one with the straight hair and the headband, Yuka is the one with the short hair, and Ayumi is the one with the curly hair. In case you were wondering.

**Old Serenity **

The water was clear and beautiful, warmed gently by the summer sun to perfect swimming temperature. Fine grains of sand sprung up from the sea bottom as Yuka hit it sharply with her foot as she pushed off and swam out towards the horizon. By the time the other three caught up with her, she was floating peacefully on her back, lazily tracing the flight of the gulls overhead with one finger.

"Dammit, how did_ you_ get so good?", were Eri's words, but her tone was pleasant, full of the strange, lilting laughter that had suddenly appeared a few months ago and showed no intention of ever leaving. Yuka plunged under suddenly, reappearing a few seconds later with her short dark hair plastered flatly against the back of her head, wiping water out of her eyes. "Talent, I guess. C'mon, Eri. You can't keep sulking forever."

"Yeah, we'll teach you, right Kagome?" The fourth girl nodded, brushing sea water away from her face. "I mean, everybody's got to know how to swim, right? I mean, what if you were in a boat and it, it capsized or something? Then you'd have to know how to swim."

Ayumi nodded, smiling at Kagome and Eri in turn. What Kagome had said had been true, but there was a slight falter to her smile as she looked at her friend. From the way Kagome talked nowadays, every boat was simply waiting to capsize, every animal rabid, and every driver on the freeway had a death wish. Not that Ayumi blamed her in the slightest. After all, she had been sick with nearly every disease imaginable, one on top of another, for _years_. Ayumi had been so worried that she had applied to medical school in hopes of finding a cure for her friend. Now that she was there, she couldn't help but think that Kagome was some sort of medical miracle. If her grandfather was to be believed ( and Ayumi _did_ believe. Ayumi _always_ believed, unlike Yuka, who always doubted; and Eri, who sometimes seemed to not even care. ) Kagome had come down with diabetes, stomach cancer, and, inexplicably, gangrene; all within a few days of each other. Having them all clear up on their own a few days later was supposedly impossible, but somehow, Kagome had managed to do it.

Having that sort of thing happening all the time was bound to make anyone a little paranoid, she reasoned. Still, at least it was good that Kagome was now apparently disease-free, and Ayumi had been thrilled to hear that she would come swimming with them today. Kagome smiled back, and Ayumi turned her attention back to the other two girls, who were arguing in the pleasant, strangely aggressive way that best friends have. "You spent _all fucking day_ Saturday shopping for that bikini, don't tell me you're not going to actually, you know, learn how to swim in it!"

"I know, I will, ok?" Now Eri was laughing, hand clasped daintily over her mouth. Last Saturday, she had dragged her friends through nearly seven hours of shopping, trying to find the perfect bathing suit. Over the past few years, she had become quite the fashionista, and when she finally found the perfect one, Yuka had almost fainted over the price tag.

"_It's quality! You can't expect quality to be cheap." _

"_It's overpriced, that's what it is. Come on, Eri, you could buy, like, ten pairs _

_of shoes for the price of that one thing. It's fucking murder." _

"_You could not buy ten pairs of shoes for...well I guess_ you_ could. Cheapskate." _

_Ayumi had simply stood there and smiled while her friends argued. If Eri was _

_going to insult _Yuka's_ shopping habits, she shuddered to think what would _

_happen if her friends found out that the new sweater they had both complimented_

_vigorously had actually cost the same as the average meal out at WacDonalds. _

"_It looks very nice on you, Eri.", she eventually ventured. The girl's face had _

_broken out in that million-dollar smile that could light up the entire room, and Yuka_

_had simply crossed her arms and sighed. _

Ayumi was broken out of her memory by a small, sharp, stifled sound. It was a sneeze, and a small one at that. But because it had come from Kagome, the other three were suddenly gathered around her, fussing about and jabbing her with seemingly incessant questions. Ayumi was asking her if she had ever had symptoms like this before, lethal amounts of concern dripping from her voice. "'Symptoms'? C'mon, Ayumi, it's only a sneeze. I'll be fine."

In a way she wished she had never allowed her grandfather to keep making all those ridiculous excuses for her. It was silly, she knew, but she sometimes wished she had simply dropped out, wished she hadn't conned everybody into believing she was sick. _Think of all the money Hojo spent on me. He must have had to start working extra hours just for me. And why did Ayumi have to go to med school?_ True, becoming a doctor was hardly a bad thing, however you looked at it. But Kagome knew for a fact that she had previously had her heart set on being a teacher. _She changed ( damn! ) her whole ( damn! ) life just to find a cure ( damn! ) for a bunch of ( damn! ) stupid diseases I never ( damn! ) even had ( damn! ). _It made her feel unclean, as if all the phantom sicknesses were clawing at her skin that very instant, clinging to her like toxic ooze.

And the worst part was that Ayumi, out of all of them, had believed her lies so completely. She believed that Kagome had gotten the flu 108 times in the space of four years. She believed that she had come down with an infection on every available body part at least once ( including several that Kagome couldn't believe anyone would use when making excuses for their own granddaughter ). She believed that Kagome had gotten ten different varieties of cancer and miraculously didn't drop dead.

In fact, the only thing that she didn't believe was that Kagome wasn't sick now. _And she thinks _I'm_ paranoid. _Ayumi's round, worried face hovered in front of her, her petit mouth twisted into a small, almost puzzled, frown. "Are you sure?" She pulled away from Kagome, and for a minute was outlined against the mid-afternoon sun. Ayumi was one of those rare people who can manage to be very attractive and very plain at the same time. She was also a person who could carry around ten extra pounds of fat and somehow not look at all chubby ( this was a mystery that Eri and Yuka had been intent on solving for several months now, and with no success ). She was pretty, but at the same time, lacked distinction. She had none of Eri's sudden beauty queen-in-training glam; none of Yuka's spiky, angular thinness ( half of the girls at school had been convinced that Yuka was anorexic, but Kagome doubted it. From what she had seen of Yuka's family, her mom was even skinnier than she was ). "I think you should go home, Kagome, if you're not feeling well", she added as she leaned forward once more, her still-dry curly hair whispering over her shoulder.

A few minutes later, Kagome was being dried off and packed off home. She still wasn't entirely sure how it had happened, but apparently she was so sickly that even a sneeze meant she could no longer stay in the water. "I could drive you home", offered Eri, pulling a key ring out of a designer pink purse that matched her new bikini perfectly. Kagome shook her head rapidly, sending drops of seawater flying all over. "Trust me, I'll be fine. You should all stay here and keep swimming."

"You sure?", asked Yuka, about to suggest that they could all go over to Ayumi's house and rent some movies instead. But Kagome was already walking away from them, treading lightly across the soft, sandy beach.

She turned to wave them goodbye. And in a way Yuka sensed a strange sadness in her, a sadness that had nothing to do with all the illnesses the Ayumi so readily accepted and that she couldn't bring herself to believe in anyway. In the real world, the sun was high in a gorgeous robin's-egg sky, cloudless and warm and serene in the way of things that are secretly bursting with life. But in the world reflected in Kagome's eyes the sun was setting, falling silently beneath a sea full of a different kind of serenity; the beautiful, sad serenity of old things as they slowly fade away. _Kagome, how did you get so old? _


	2. Sea Treasure

Disclaimer: nope...still don't own anything

A/N: apparently, my mom is reading this. so, to completely destroy any self-respect i might have had...HI MOMMMMMY!...ahem... so, in this chapter...things will finally start to happen! ( sort of )! Also, thank you to my lovelyy reviewers ( actually, there's only one...but whatever... )

Mizuumi13: thanks a bundle! And i will!...um, hopefully.

And so, without further delay, let the horrible insanity ( it's not really that bad ) begin...

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The world under the ocean was surprisingly beautiful. Eri let herself slide gently beneath the surface of the water, her candy red fingernails trailing lightly through the sand that gathered on the ground.

After it had become apparent that Eri was terrified of putting her head underwater, Ayumi had ( much to her friends' bafflement ), jumped suddenly out of the water and ran a ways across the beach, stopping only to grab the canvas tote bag she had brought with. A few minutes later, however, her actions became a little more understandable, as she returned carrying three scuba masks and matching flippers. "I rented them from the guy who rents surfboards and stuff up there", she explained, jabbing one finger back behind her. "I thought, maybe Eri won't be scared of being underwater if she knows she can't drown. Umm." She set the rented equipment on the beach and blushed the color of Eri's nail polish, smiling the awkward smile of someone is isn't quite sure whether they're about to be told they are smart or stupid.

"Good idea", said Eri finally. "I'll try it."

That only turned out to be half true. Yes, Eri was willing to put up with the mask so long as it let her breathe underwater. But there was, as she put it, no way in hell she was going to try on the flippers. "I'll look like a retarded dolphin. Besides, do they actually _do_ anything? Or do they just look stupid?"

"Um, they help you swim better", Ayumi offered up nervously.

"Ayumi, don't even bother", interjected Yuka, who was having trouble getting her feet to squeeze into the rubbery flippers. "I'm surprised she was even willing to wear the scuba mask. How did you get her to do it? She would never have listened if_ I_ suggested it."

"That's because you would have sworn at me, you slut", sniffed Eri, trying to prevent her hair being messed up.

A few minutes later, the three girls were, with varying degrees of difficulty, swimming across the shallows of the sea bottom. In truth, Ayumi seemed to be the only one at home with swimming underwater. Stupidly enough, Eri couldn't seem to stay underwater. _How does this work! I don't get it! I try to swim on the surface and I can't stay up. Then, I try to go under, and the fucking opposite happens! It doesn't make sense! _

Apparently Ayumi noticed the expression on her friend's face, because she surfaced near Eri and walked over, smiling helpfully. "It's ok. You'll get it! It just takes practice. And you know, you really should try the flippers. I bet they'd help."

"Like hell they would! Ayumi, I think there's something wrong with these things! They're like, eating my feet or something! I can't get them off–aargh!"

Yuka lost her balance and fell over backwards into the water, surfacing a few seconds later plus a few scrapes and minus one swimsuit top. "Aaah! How the hell do I lose _that_, and _not_ lose these fucking things?" She pointed angrily at the flippers, almost toppled over again, and settled for crossing her arms tightly over her chest and looking around furiously.

Ayumi giggled. "Would you like us to help you look for it?", she offered, already glancing around her. After a few minutes of frantic searching, Eri finally found the top, caught precariously on a rock. "Lucky it got caught, actually. Otherwise is might have been swept out to sea", she warned as she handed it over to its owner. "Say, why did you have to go and buy such a tiny little one, anyway?" She wrinkled her nose as Yuka refastened the clasps that had popped loose when she had hit the water. "Hey, what about 'if you've got it, flaunt it'?", she asked petulantly, running one hand across her flat, size 0 stomach. Eri giggled. "Yuka? You haven't got it. You're just bony, ok?" A few seconds later, they were engaged in a splash fight, laughing and yelling "Stoppit!" in equal measure. Ayumi shrugged and, after deciding that she would never understand her friends, dove gracefully underwater.

Eri wiped the water out of her eyes, laughing and angry at the same time. "You whore! Look at what you did to my hair!"

"So you admit that I won?"

"No way!" She looked around. "Hey, where'd Ayumi go?"

"I, um, I...dunno. She must have wandered off." They set off ( rather awkwardly, seeing as Yuka still hadn't managed to get the flippers to come off ) to find her.

Ayumi, when they found her, was sitting on her soft white beach towel, holding something cupped in one hand, and picking at it furiously with the other. "Hey. Watcha' doing?" Ayumi's head snapped up, a small smile on her face. She held up her hand, inviting her friends to inspect its contents. "It's a...a coin." Yuka stated. "A really, really grubby coin. Great find, Ayumi."

"I don't get it", Eri added.

"Sea treasure!", explained Ayumi cheerfully.

"Huh?"

Ayumi looked up at her friends blank faces, then explained. "Sea treasure. It's what me and my brothers called stuff that washed up on the beach after a big storm. Before Toshi was born and we had to move to a bigger house, we lived almost right on the beach. Every time there was a typhoon, it was terrifying. We had to go and hide in the basement. But after the storm cleared up, we were always the first out of the house the next morning. You could just run along the beach and through the shallows, and find all the stuff that the storm pulled up from the bottom of the ocean. Mostly, it was just sea glass and bits of old wood. But there were some pottery shards too, and occasionally vases or bits of buildings and statues. Once, after a really bad storm, I even found a big treasure chest. I got really excited, but it was empty."

"What, really? I never knew that!"

"You never asked."

"You think the last one we had was big enough to wash a bunch of stuff up?"

Ayumi considered this, and finally decided, "Yeah. Yeah, definitely." Eri's face lit up. "Cool! Let's go look for some. Sea treasure!" She splashed off into the surf, followed closely by her two friends.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The three girls swam, more or less gracefully, through the waves, questing fingers snagging any interesting objects lodged in the ridges of silt that had accumulated on the ocean floor. Ayumi was right, so far they had found nothing but sea glass and driftwood. Still, Eri was positively ecstatic with their finds. "Think of all the cool stuff I could use this for!" She had ended up going to art school, and seemed to have become inspired to turn everything she touched into some sort of weird sculpture.

Yuka, however, was less than happy with their finds. "This sucks. Ayumi, I thought you said that cool stuff would wash up."

"I said that cool stuff _sometimes_ washes up. It's pretty rare."

"Yeah, well, there had better be something." She disappeared underwater with a loud splash, kicking awkwardly with the frustrating flippers still stuck firmly on her feet.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A few minutes later, Yuka was floating triumphantly above her find, yelling out joyfully to her friends. "See? I knew it! I knew it!" The other two splashed over as quickly as they could, faces full of curiosity. "What is it?", asked Ayumi cheerfully.

"I don't see anything at all", Eri sniffed.

"Of course you don't see anything, you just kicked up a helluva lot of sand into the water! It's not my fault you can't see!"

"Anyway", Yuka continued as she fanned her hand through the water in an attempt to clear away the silt her friends had kicked up. "I think I found a bit of a statue, or something. Didn't you say you found bits of statues or something?"

"Yeah, but it was really rare. Wow, I hope you're right, though. That would be really awesome! If you found one, I mean."

"Yeah, so, like, what did you find anyway? I still don't see anything."

"That's because you're not looking", Yuka snapped. "There's an outline of a hand right there, see?" She traced her finger through the water. "When I saw it, I realized there must be part of a statue buried under there."

"Well c'mon, grab it, then. I wanna see it too!"

"Um, actually, Yuka, Eri, if it just washed up in that big storm, you might want to be really careful with it. It could be really fragile if it's actually been underwater this whole time. You should probably just try to shift the sand off of it as gently as possible. Um."

Ayumi looked sheepish, just like she always did after giving advice. The other two stared at her. "Um, you could, like, show us how to do that, then?", asked Eri. "Um, sure." Ayumi readjusted her scuba mask and sunk gently under the water's surface with barely a splash. The other two followed less gracefully, Eri yet again having difficulty staying underwater, and Yuka tripping comically over her unwieldy flippers.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Yuka leaned over her friends' shoulders trying to catch a glimpse of what they were doing. Eri and Ayumi had decided quite a while ago that even though this statue was Yuka's find, they would be the ones to uncover it. "You're too rough, Yuka! You'll break it!"

Perhaps it was all for the best, though. Yuka sometimes seemed physically incapable of gentle motions. She wasn't clumsy, not as such, but everything she did seemed to have a sort of extreme sharpness to it. She would have made a fantastic dancer, if it weren't for the fact that few dance companies wanted a prima ballerina with a tendency to kick her dance partners in the face. She supposed that it was only to be expected that Ayumi; who had apparently spent a significant portion of her childhood doing this sort of thing, and Eri; whose delicate, fluttery hands had created the painting that hung above her bed, would naturally be better at this sort of thing. Still, she couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed.

At least it was a beautiful statue, no matter who uncovered it. Yuka wasn't by nature an aesthetically-minded person, but even she was a bit taken aback by the beauty and intricacy of the piece. True, they had only uncovered a hand so far, and if this thing had really been tossed around in a storm, that might very well be all there was left. But still, she was very impressed. Whoever had sculpted this must have been very gifted, she decided. Somehow, they had managed to catch all the details of a real hand perfectly: the fine lines and creases; the slight, natural curve of fingers.

And yet, something just felt...wrong.

Everything they had found earlier, all the fragments of sea glass and driftwood had been rubbed smooth by the ocean. They were bereft of detail, of sharp line. Surely a delicate statue couldn't withstand the treatment that had turned hard, sharp, shiny glass into small smooth, mottled pebbles. Could it?

And then, there was something else. Her two friends had been worked their way towards the wrist, gently shifting the sand away. They hadn't gotten very far, but they got far enough. There was something there that definitely wasn't wrist at all. In fact, it looked almost like...rope.

How many statues are bound at the wrist?

And how many people can carve rope so realistically that the fibers sway gently in the current?

But then, if it wasn't really a statue...

Such detailed, lifelike work...

That could only mean...

Yuka's eyes widened, hands flew to where her mouth would have been if she weren't wearing the damn scuba mask.

_Oh shit._

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A/N: mehh, end of chappie! ( as if you couldn't tell )

this was a really strange chapter to write for me. i watch a lot of Law and Order...so i kept on being reminded of the part at the beginning of the episode where drunk partygoers find someone's body stuffed in a giant tin of anchovies or something...XD maybe i'm just weird..._  
_


	3. Problems with the Well

Disclaimer: nope

A/N: First of all, I am so sorry it's taken me this long to update. I'm going to try to update on the weekends. But I don't really know how well that's going to work. So, anyway...right now, I'm being a very bad writer. Bad, bad Brandeee. Not just did I end last chapter with a sort-of cliffie...but I'm not going to resolve it in this chapter ( ducks the pineapple you just threw at her head ) Please don't kill me just yet! I felt like I needed to write a chapter to explain a little bit more about what's going on with Kagome right now...so here it is. ( By the way...I'm probably going to do a lot of jumping around from different people's lives in this story...so I hope that doesn't annoy anyone ) Plus, this chapter will see the return of everyone's favorite perverted houshi/ demon slayer team! Yippie!

I sort of meant this to be a short chapter...but part of it ended up turning into a sort of Sango-centric drabble ( and I apologize to anyone who doesn't like Sango...because I'm probably going to end up writing more about her than I should ). Oh, and before I forget...

Avelyn: Thank you! And it is...but not for a while yet ( aren't I evil, making you wait? )

Mizuumi13: Yay for Law and Order ( hugs you )...and I'll try that

Star Rime: I know. I kinda suck at writing any sort of action...so I apologize in advance to everybody for the fact that this will probably be a very slow story in getting started. And, I didn't realize that. But I'll fix it, k?

Well... I think that's pretty much everything. So without further ado, I present...chapter 3...

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Problems with the Well **

Soft, slipper-clad feet touched down lightly on the cracked, dusty floor of the old well with a sound like cats' footsteps.

"Nope! Still nothing!"

"_Damn_it! You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. How could I possibly miss it! D'you think I'm stupid, or what?"

"Well maybe you are! Fucking stupid b–"

"**_SIT!_**_Sitsitsitsitsitsit_!"

**-WHAP!-**

**-THUD!- **

**-"WHAT WAS _THAT_ FOR?"- **

"Watch your mouth!"

"Um, are you kids alright?"

Kagome glanced up awkwardly at her mother, who was leaning over the side of the well with a flashlight and a concerned expression.

"I thought I heard some noise."

"Umm, hi Mom. No, it's nothing, really. We were just..."

Her mom smiled warmly. "Any luck?"

"No, not yet. Well, we'll keep trying, at any rate."

"Ok. And Kagome?"

"Hm?"

"Be careful, ok? I wouldn't want for either of you to fall down the well and hurt yourselves."

And with that, she left, scrupulously not looking at the half-demon still plastered to the well's floor. Kagome sighed. Sometimes, it was so hard to tell what her mother was thinking. Either she simply didn't notice that InuYasha had been 'falling down the well and hurting himself' quite a bit lately, or she was very slowly winding her daughter up. And sometimes, it was just so hard to tell.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Ren sat at the kitchen table, lazily reading a cheesy dime store romance while she waited for the curry to finish cooking. Although she was fully aware of their resident hanyou's dislike of spicy food, she refused to believe that he genuinely couldn't eat it. _I'm sure he's just being finicky,_ she thought to herself. Then, choosing to ignore the fresh volley of swears and 'sits' emanating from the well house, she turned the page and continued reading.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A few hundred years away, another pair of feet touched down in the same well, stamping at the floor in an attempt to get through and having about as much luck as Kagome.

"Sango, I do not believe that this is going to work."

"Try something else, then!"

"Sango, I have tried everything I know. The well seems to be very thoroughly sealed."

"Let me see, then."

Sango awkwardly placed one leg over the side of the well, then pulled the other up to follow so that she was sitting on the edge.

"Sango! Don't jump down here!"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"You'll hurt the baby!"

"I will _not._ Stop being so overprotective. And _don't make me come down there, houshi-sama." _

Miroku cringed. He had always been a little afraid of his wife, despite his feelings for her, and during the course of her pregnancy, she had gotten steadily more frightening. _And I had thought having kids was a good idea. _Right now, he was just worried about living long enough to meet his children. Yes, children. Because Lady Kaede had said ( and she should know ) that Sango seemed unusually large for her sixth month of pregnancy. Twins, perhaps?

"Sango", he wheedled in his best ingratiating voice. "I think perhaps we should ask Lady Kaede's help? It seems that whoever sealed the well was very powerful. Maybe she can furnish us with some answers?"

And that was all it took for Sango's face to settle back into that familiar, determined smile.

"Ok. You go and see if you can find her. Need help getting back up?"

"No, no. I think I'm fine."

And with that, the pair set off, back into the woods that surrounded the well. Maybe there was no hope of the well ever being opened again. But this was certainly better than sitting around and waiting for it to spontaneously reopen by itself.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The embers cast a soft, shadowed red light onto the side of Sango's face as they dwindled down into nothingness. _Funny_, she thought. For her whole life, she had imagined that some day she would find somebody she truly loved, somebody she was meant for..._and they would live far away from the noisy, destructive world, ensconced in a castle the color of glass that echoed with birdsong, and even if there was only one other person near, she would never have cause to be lonely again... _

She shook her head. Where had that come from? The glass castle was an old dream, a fantasy that had been born of youngest childhood and had faded away bit by bit as she slowly learned that the real world had no room for glass castles, and that the birds that sung for you in the morning could very well be your dinner that evening.

_Of course,_ she mused, _at least part of it was for real_. After the castle was thoroughly shattered, after she had lost everything, she had found the one perfect piece of the fantasy that was still somehow stayed whole, that still somehow remained. Sometimes, it seemed so strange, so impossible. _Maybe I'm still unconscious. Maybe I'm still bleeding, lying in that shallow grave._ And, despite all evidence to the contrary, she could almost believe it. She could almost feel _the sticky, slippery blood that slid between her fingers, the damp earth that clotted against her fingers as she scrabbled hopelessly against it. She had managed to clear a small opening, and a small patch of night sky was visible; a cool, star-scented breeze taunting her; a slice of silver moon teasing her with its nitid_ _perfection. _Look at me, _it said. _Look at me, as I show you everything you've ever wanted...but be careful. _Because every second she gazed up at the moon, every moment she wasted away in her imaginary glass castle was another few drops of blood; another dull, throbbing hurt from the wound in her back; another chance for that same wound to become infected. _

Even now, sitting awake in her bed and watching the glittering embers, the memory made her shudder. Even now, she couldn't fathom how she had managed to survive. How close had the point of the scythe come to her heart? (A/N: I wasn't entirely sure what to call that weird thing that Kohaku has...it probably isn't really a scythe, but I couldn't think of a better word ) And how had she ever managed to survive with nothing but a few scars to show for her suffering? She remembered what had happened when she was seven, when a man from her village got a deep cut down his leg while fighting demons. _We had really tried. We all tried, as hard as we could, to bandage it up, to keep it clean. But we must have missed something, because it still became infected, and after that, there was nothing any of us could do to save him. _She could remember the color his flesh had turned, the sickly smell. _And, even after I managed to crawl out of the grave, I was so sure. I was so sure that this would be how I would die, too. How_ _did I ever live through all that? _

In truth, she knew the answer to that question, at least. And she wished she didn't. It was better to think that she was simply incredibly lucky than to know the truth, to know that probably the only reason she was still alive was that_ he_ had chosen her, that _he_ had decided to use her in one of _his _plots. And even that was an indication of how unhumanly fortunate she was. _Foolish girls who let themselves become pawns in the plans of demons don't find a way to break free. They don't get the opportunity to switch sides. They certainly don't meet the love of their lives. Because foolish girls like that _die.

The door swished open, pulling her from her thoughts. "Well, it took me quite while to find her. But eventually I did, and Kaede says she will go and examine the well tomorrow."

"That's great, Miroku!"

She felt herself smile. Even though she smiled a lot nowadays, it still always felt like a surprise. _Miroku, Miroku. Do you even _know _how many times you've saved me from myself? _

And all of a sudden, everything fell into place. She could have, should have, would have died...but she didn't. And she had found true love, and more than that, she had found friends.

Now, if she could only get them all back together again. It was frustrating, not knowing where the people she had cared about for so long were, not knowing if they were okay. A few months ago, an aunt that Shippo hadn't even known that he had had appeared out of nowhere, offering him a home. And he had taken her up on her offer. And Sango had pretended to be supportive, and had really only felt like crying. First, it had been InuYasha and Kagome, vanishing down the well and never returning. Then, Shippo had gone and left, too. Not that she could blame him. But it still made her feel a bit...empty.

At least Miroku wasn't going anywhere. She would see to that.

"Sango? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just wish we could find out who sealed up the well. That's all."

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A few miles away, the woman who had sealed the well was sitting, staring up at the moon that peeked through the mouth of her cave. _It was so unfair._ She wasn't usually one to indulge in self-pity. _But still...it was so, so unfair. _She was smart. She was beautiful. And more than that, she was loving and caring, and a hard worker. She had self-control, and discipline, and she always had her priorities straight. And still...she was also always the one who took the blame. And she was always the one who got hurt. And maybe it was better that way. She lifted her face to the moon, and wished to cry.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A/N: End of Chapter! And remember to review!

I bet a lot of you already know who sealed the well, don't you?


	4. Hiding in the Rain

A/N: YAAARGH! I'm so sooorrry! It's taken me like, I dunno, a few months to get this chapter up. I'm pretty sure I said something earlier about trying to update on the weekends. Oops. I'm like, a pathological updating liar. And it's not even the weekend, either. It's Friday. Grr. Aargh.

Actually, I've had this chapter written for quite a while, but I didn't dare try and edit it until today. Just so everybody knows ( because I know that everybody really, truly, deeply _cares _about this ), I hate this chapter. A lot. But I wasn't entirely sure how else to write it.

Oh, another thing that I didn't feel like needed explaination at the time I wrote this chapter, but which I'm kind of starting to regret writing now... ( but obviously not enough to actually delete it, XD ) About the random weird bit about Kagome in this chapter... if you care about it, then you can rest assured that it will be further explained later. If you don't care about it, feel free to ignore it in its entirety. It's just a little sub-plot that I felt like throwing in and doesn't have all that much to do with the main plot of the story.

And, of course, before I forget, praise be to my lovely ( and hopefully patient ) reviewers:

**Mizuumi:** loves! thank you!

**Sasia:** It's ok. Crazy, spastic psychos are exactly my favorite kind of people. But of course, option #4 is the correct answer.

**Skyfire-chan:** thank you! And, I'll try ( but probably not get very far, knowing me XD )

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for an overactive imagination and a keyboard ( actually, I don't even own that, the computer is my mom's ).

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Ohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigod"

"Shut up!"

"Ohmigodohmigodohmigod"

"SHUT UP!"

"Ohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigod"

"**WILL. YOU. SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP!?!"**

"Nnn."

The three girls huddled together on the beach, each wrapped up in a towel. They each shook a little, and Eri's eyeliner, which had managed to withstand the sea water untouched, was now starting to go a bit racoon-eyed. Her cheeks were flushed an unnatural shade of hot pink after yelling at Ayumi, who was now silent.

Eri felt bad for yelling at her. She felt bad for everything that had happened today, as if she were somehow to blame. _It was Ayumi's stupid idea to go looking for stuff, anyway. And it was Yuka's fault for having to look in that particular spot. I didn't even do anything..._

But still, she felt like she ought to apologize. For what, she wasn't sure. _I'm so sorry that we meant to go swimming and ended up finding a dead body, and now you're traumatized. _Yeah, like that would work.

Actually, though, it was true. She couldn't help but wonder how much of Ayumi's life had been completely wrecked today. Up until today, she must have had nothing but happy memories of looking for sea treasure...now how many of them would seem scary and sinister?

_This sucks._ It was possibly the biggest understatement of the year, but it was one of the only complete thoughts that could manage to wedge itself through Eri's frozen brain. _This so, completely, totally, sucks._ And it sucked even worse to know that she had just yelled at one of her best friends over saying exactly what she herself was thinking. In fact, it was so unfair that Ayumi had to be here at all.

Because even though Ayumi was the oldest of the three by a few months, being around her still felt like being trailed by an idealistic baby sister. Somehow, you just didn't want to believe that anything bad could happen when she was around. Somehow, you just wanted to wrap her up in soft, fuzzy blankets and protect her from anything that could hurt her. Maybe it was because she was always so quiet, and so smart, and so patient that it made your heart break. Maybe it was because she didn't seem to think she was smart at all. Maybe it was because she was so unbearably naive that she decided to go to med school simply in hopes of saving her friend. Whatever it was, it simply served to make Eri mad. This was all so..._stupid_. It sucked.

"We have to _do_ something", Yuka announced slowly, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing. It was an almost impossibly strange tone to hear in the voice of Yuka of all people, but then again, today was an almost impossibly strange day. "We can tell Mom. She'll know what to do. She can fix this."

"We're not telling your mom."

"Why? We didn't do anything. We won't get in trouble."

"YES WE WILL! They'll...they'll think tha...that we did it, and then, we'll, we'll go to jail and we won't ever..._ever_..."

"SHUT UP! They won't think that! They _know_ Mom, so they'll believe me!"

"You. Stupid. Whore. Your mom works drugs. This is murder. They'll still blame us!"

"What do you know? You don't know shit! You don't! My mom's best friend is a homicide detective! Oh, and it's _narcotics_ and _homicide_, not drugs and murder. Dumbass!"

"'It's narcotics and homicide'..._oh excuse me. _What in the fuck is your point?!?"

"My point is that we're not going to get blamed for this...and you know it, don't you? _You just don't even want to deal with this_!"

For a few seconds, the three girls were quiet. Then, "No...no, I don't. Do you? _Really_?"

Yuka blushed. "No. But...but we can't just do nothing. We can't."

"_Yeah, we can!_ We can leave. We can...can just drive home, and, and not say anything. We...we don't have to stay! _Please!_"

"But..."

"That would be _wrong_."

Eri and Yuka started. They had been so engaged in arguing with one another that they had almost forgotten their other friend was even there. "We _can't_ just do nothing. It would be...it would be..." The girl shuddered violently, shaking free the drops of seawater that still clung to her.

"Yeah...", Yuka agreed dreamily. "It would be...wouldn't it."

"No it wouldn't. Look... _please_. M...maybe we can't make this go away forever...but why _now_? Why do we have to do this now? We can...we can go back to my house or something...my dad's gone for the week...we can, like, talk this over or something? Right?"

"But...what if someone else comes here, while we're gone?" Ayumi looked concerned.

"Well..._good_. Then we don't have to do anything at all!"

Ayumi looked to her two friends in bafflement. How could they not see? How blind were they? "No...we...we need to make sure no one else knows."

"Wha?...Why?"

Eri and Yuka stared at their friend. Now she wasn't even making sense anymore. Plus, she had this weird..._look_ on her face. The sky had begun to cloud over, and as she stood up against it, she looked almost...intimidating. "Eri's right. We can wait. We can come back. But we _have_ to come back. And we can't let anyone else find out."

She paused, letting her arms flop down at her sides. The wind picked up, and it blew her away from her face, giving the impression that she was surrounded by a glossy black cloud.

"There's a little cave, over that way, that most people don't know about, because the entrance is a few feet underwater. Me and my brother used to hide stuff in there." And with that, she turned and began walking back towards the water.

"What the...what the hell?"

"Ayumi? AYUMI!"

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

It was starting to rain. First, it was only a few scattered drops, dancing delicately along the weathered wood of the windowsill. Then, it had begun to pick up, splattering fat, cold drops into Kagome's face. She realized that she probably ought to close the window. But in a way, she liked the rain. Listening to the dreary sound the rain made was torture, but it was something she could grow to like, too. It was something she could grow to love.

There was an open book on her desk, Sealing Scrolls and their Various Uses, but her attention had snapped away from reading the second it had begun to rain. _It's only rain_, she told herself. _It doesn't have to mean anything, not if you don't want it to. _But that was a lie, and she knew it.

_It had rained that night._

_No, no, NO! We don't think about that. We _won't_ think about that, not ever again._ Because to think about something was to acknowledge that it had really happened. And to do that meant owing up to what you yourself had become.

And the worst part was, no one would ever understand what the problem was. Even if she_ could_ go back through the well, she didn't really think that Miroku or Sango would understand. Certainly, she wasn't going to try to explain any of this to InuYasha. Not just would he not get it, he would almost definitely get mad over it, too.

_And...he's right, isn't he? He would be right to be mad at me, if I told him the truth. That if I could do it all over again...I _wouldn't_. I would still travel with them, still help find the shards. But I wouldn't do..._that.

She sighed. It was unbelievably stupid that she actually felt guilty. Sometimes, you needed to kill to survive. _Surely everybody knows that? InuYasha knows...Miroku knows...Sango knows...I think even Shippo knows._

_But _I_ don't. _

_You can explain it to me as many times as you like. And I'll understand what you're saying. But it won't sink in, it won't really stick to me. Does that make me soft? Does it make me stupid, if want to think there could have been another way?_

She shook her head. It was pointless to keep on thinking about this. What was done was done, and surely nothing could ever undo it. Besides, she had more important things to think about. _Get through the well. Get through the well. Focus on that, do that. It will help you, you know it will._

She sighed. It was probably true. At least getting back through the well would be an accomplishment, a little something she could feel good about...she shook herself mentally. Certainly she had much more to feel good about than that...?

_Trust me_, said the part of her brain that was still trying to comfort her. _You've accomplished more in these last few years than most people do in a lifetime._

And it was true, wasn't it?

It was just to bad that all her great achievements were things she would never dare think of again.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Ayumi realized, very slowly, that she was dizzy. _Wha...what?_ She realized she didn't understand. One moment, she had been sitting on the beach, trying to ease away the shock, and then...and then she was here. It was the cave she and her brother had once hidden in for a whole day and frightened Mom and Dad half to death, she knew as she began to recognize the curve of the rock. What she didn't understand was what exactly she was doing here. And standing over a dead body, no less. How very strange.

"Hey, Ayumi? Are you ok? You look awfully...um..."

She spun around, suddenly confused again. Eri was there, and behind her, Yuka. "Oh, um, I, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. It just...this whole thing just..."

"Yeah. We know." Eri put her arm around her shoulder. "C'mon, you said that we could go back to my house, remember? Let's go."

_No, I don't remember. Not at all._ She swallowed anxiously. _But surely I can't worry them with that._

"Hey, you had us really freaked out for a while there, you know."

"I'm sorry. I'm sure it was nothing." She tried her best to smile.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"It must be hard having kids."

"You can't imagine. I mean, every day, it's hard not to think what might happen."

Across town, Yuka's mother was getting ready to go home, pouring herself another cup of coffee as she gathered together her things. She dropped the folder she had been carrying clumsily, letting the papers spill out haphazardly over her desk. Some days, she just felt so tired. _Besides, Amaya's right. It is hard._ She peered over at her friend, who was regarding her critically.

"You don't look so good. Anyway, this is why I've never even considered kids."

Yuka's mother ( A/N: no, she's not going to get a name. She's just not important enough to get a name. ) sniffed sadly. "Yeah...I don't even know. I suppose I wouldn't want kids if I were you either, though. I mean, at least when you're dealing with drugs, you can tell them about all the dangers, and try to make them understand. I don't suppose you could really tell your kid not to get murdered...well, you could tell them not to murder anybody else, I suppose."

Amaya couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, I bet Yuka's and her friends are just standing over a dead body right now, trying to figure out to hide all the evidence."

And the statement was so outrageous that it got a laugh out of both of them.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A/N: Mmm, irony. It's a major food group for me.

Amaya gets a name because she is going to be important.

I warned you this chapter was going to be awkward, didn't I? See, I am occasionally capable of telling the truth.

And, I have a question for anyone kind enough to review. I've realized that I figured out what happened to pretty much everyone except for Kohaku. So, anyone care to give an opinion on where he is?


End file.
